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Wednesday, March 18, 2015

"No vacation plan survives contact with the Ikwen"

Josh, a customer and co-poster at the 15mm Scifi Miniatures Gaming Facebook Group recently posted some pics of his Ikwen. Fresh in from the mail, he put aside his current projects and not only started organizing them into units, but set to converting one of his extra squad leader poses into a commander sort.

He started with just the quick removal of the gun and the addition of a piece of wire in it's place. To this he glued a piece of plastic card in the shape a Huli blade. He then trimmed this basic shape int othe more refined shape below and blended the blade to the haft using green stuff.

This is a great example of a simple conversion that can make for a very visually satisfying leader figure. I can't wait to see it finished, but wanted to show it off in it's basic stages so folks could see the conversion work behind it.

Monday, March 16, 2015

I have had my test casts of the Ikwen for some time now and finally got a chance to start painting them. I am not far along with them, but I thought it might be fun to share how nice they look with just the barest amount of paint and a brown wash.

There is certainly much more to do to get them finished and I intend to post more pics as I go, but please enjoy this little glimpse into what these fun alien rebels can look like.

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Melee Weapons Among the Ikwen

While the concept of firearms is new to the Ikwen (only within the current generation) they do have a long tradition of bladed combat. The Huli, which translates literally and quite basically as, "Blade", has taken many form among these aliens and their various cultures but is most commonly seen as a hooked sword or hafted weapon.

Huli weapons all share the common features of an inwardly curved blade, hooking to different degrees. The blade is edged along the entirety of the inside curve of the weapon as well as the back side of the curve itself. This allows the weapon to cut both on the forward and backward swings.

Most of the modern Huli are cobbled together from scrap and even pre-occupation Huli were often agricultural revisions of the more traditional weapon. The common Huli do indeed persist as they have been used for centuries as agricultural tools among more civilized Ikwen. The hooked sword, known simply as a Huli, was used for threshing and as a chopping tool for foods. The hafted Huli known as the Kragt-huli is used both as an agricultural and herding tool where the hook and point are useful in budging stubborn, thick-hided livestock animals. Hulis of other kinds can be seen among the more traditional and ancient Ikwen people as well as the Mugoda clans. These folk still maintain, to varying extents, the warrior ways of the earlier Ikwen cultures before settlement and agriculture allowed them to put away most of their need for weapons.

Among the steppes tribes, a common sight is the Goda-huli, a heavy-hafted hooked axe that is wielded to deadly effect from the backs of their massive steeds. In the case of this weapon, the haft is made thick and reinforced with resin and hide to help it absorb the shock of a charged strike. Where the blade turns in, instead of coming to a point it broadens to an axe-like head. The edge still continues to inside of the hooked blade but it gain a heavy striking head that can often remove heads and limbs in a single swing.

Another weapon common among most of the tribal folks of the Ikwen are short Huli blades, longer than a knife but not as massive and long as the machete-like basic Huli, the Katag-huli. These blades are used for ritual combats as well as a utility blade when hunting. Tribal Ikwen are also quite adept at throwing these blades as well as other Huli blades which they often do before they clash with an enemy.

Outside of the tribal Ikwen, the art of Huli combat has all but disappeared. There are still practitioners of ancient fighting arts and in some remote places there are schools that keep these techniques alive. A few remote villages have even kept alive the ancient Ikwen warrior ways and retain the traditional military orders of the Ikwen people training in many forms of Huli combat and wearing traditional armor and battle dress. Since the onset of the rebellion, these fighters have managed to find their way into fighting units and more than a few militia leaders have appeared wearing these ancient traditional costumes and weapons as a form of inspiration to oppose the invaders.

Saturday, March 7, 2015

One of the more popular systems out for 15mm science fiction miniatures right now, is Gruntz 15mm. Gruntz is a straight forward system that allows players to build their own forces using a points system. It also allows them to build their own units and vehicles using this same points system. I have posted some reviews of the system at the end of this post but for now, let's dive into what I have done.

With the Ikwen being released I decided i wanted a way to really demonstrate how I see them being used in games. Having access to Gruntz and Gruntomatic, the free unit generator for Gruntz 15mm, I decided to tinker with some unit cards for the Ikwen. While my experience with the system is minimal, one of the beauties of the system is that it assigns descriptive values to the statistics of the game, allowing you to fit numbers to your theme and this is exactly what I did.

I have tried to post only units that can be made with the Ikwen miniatures currently available, however there are a couple that have been included, for the sake of completeness, that do not currently have miniatures. My hope is to expand the range to include all manner of units allow for a fully developed force. For those wanting to field figures for the cards that do not yet have specific figures, simple conversions will allow you to field them until such time as appropriate figures become available.